On the Road with JLo

Production Profile // Jan 2013 // Front Of House Magazine

Engineer Rick Camp is a man with plenty of frequent flyer miles. When your list of FOH mixing credits includes the likes of Madonna, Beyoncé, Anita Baker, Natalie Cole, Destiny’s Child, Chris Brown and Burt Bacharach, you’ve been around the block a few times. We recently caught up with Rick in Australia during Jennifer Lopez’s Dance Again World Tour. Camp, who had previously worked FOH with J-Lo, was brought in again to mix the European, Australian and Asian legs of the tour last September, which — possibly just for additional airline miles — concluded with two dates in San Juan, Puerto Rico, followed by hopping back to central Asia for a couple shows in Turkmenistan on December 28.

Like many sound engineers, Camp had a musical background, having played trumpet for about 10 years back in the 1970s, and then attending the Berklee College of Music in the 1980s. “But then I realized all the horn bands — like Earth, Wind & Fire, Kool & the Gang and Chicago — had kind of gone away. So I made a change and went into engineering,” Camp recalls.

“Engineering was always something I did with the local bands that I played for, but it just came natural to me. I made the move from Cincinnati — where I’m from — to L.A. At that time, I had a gig with a national recording group called The Whispers. From then on, I kept at it, and ended up mixing for Earth Wind & Fire around ‘94. I mixed them for about five years. Then I went out with Madonna, Beyoncé, Destiny’s Child and so on. Now I’m back out on the road with J-Lo.”

The Team, The System

Clair Brothers is the sound company on the Dance Again World Tour, with support from Sydney-based Jands Audio for the Australian/Asian legs. Camp was brought on board last September with the European dates starting at the Crystal Hall Arena in Baku, Azerbaijan, and joined monitor mixer Vish Wadi, a first-call veteran who’s worked with top names like Shakira, Enrique Iglesias, Rihanna, Miley Cyrus, Babyface and Sting.